World War I - General & Miscellaneous, World War I - Resolution & Aftermath

The First World War

Name: The First World War
Author: Hew Strachan
ISBN: 9780143035183

by Hew Strachan

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Overview

Soon to be a major television series on the Discovery Channel!

Ninety years have passed since the outbreak of World War I, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative new book, the legacy of the “war to end all wars” is with us still. The First World War was a truly global conflict from the start, with many of the most decisive battles fought in or directly affecting the Balkans, Africa, and the Ottoman Empire. Even more than World War II, the First World War continues to shape the politics and international relations of our world, especially in hot spots like the Middle East and the Balkans.

Strachan has done a masterful job of reexamining the causes, the major campaigns, and the consequences of the First World War, compressing a lifetime of knowledge into a single definitive volume tailored for the general reader. Written in crisp, compelling prose and enlivened with extraordinarily vivid photographs and detailed maps, The First World War re-creates this world-altering conflict both on and off the battlefield—the clash of ideologies between the colonial powers at the center of the war, the social and economic unrest that swept Europe both before and after, the military strategies employed with stunning success and tragic failure in the various theaters of war, the terms of peace and why it didn’t last.

Drawing on material culled from many countries, Strachan offers a fresh, clear-sighted perspective on how the war not only redrew the map of the world but also set in motion the most dangerous conflicts of today. Deeply learned and powerfully written, The First World War will stand as a landmark of contemporary history.

Synopsis

It will soon be close to a century since the outbreak of the First World War, yet as military historian Hew Strachan argues in this brilliant and authoritative one-volume history, the legacy of the “war to end all wars” is with us still. Written in crisp, compelling prose and enlivened with vivid photographs—including early color photographs—The First World War re-creates this world-altering conflict both on and off the battlefield. Strachan offers a fresh and truly global perspective on how the Great War not only redrew the map of the world but also set in motion the most dangerous conflicts of today, especially in such hot spots as the Middle East and the Balkans. Deeply learned and powerfully written, The First World War is a landmark work of contemporary history.

The Washingtton Post

If Strachan had the least sense of solidarity with his fellow historians, his book would have failed miserably. Instead, the breadth and depth of his knowledge -- Strachan is midway through a three-volume, "scholarly" history of World War I -- allowed the author to write with a rigor inspired, rather than undermined, by television's brevity. He offers a broad, coherent and convincing vision. The striking period photographs have been chosen with an acuity that reinforces the text. And the prose is so clear that the author's fellow academics may revoke his numerous honors. — Ralph LPeters

About the Author, Hew Strachan

Hew Strachan is the Chichele Professor of the History of War and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford University. The editor of The Oxford History of the First World War, he is writing a three-volume history of the First World War, the first volume of which was published in 2001 to wide acclaim.

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Editorials

The Washingtton Post

Publishers Weekly

One of the leading historians of WWI offers this superior one-volume version of his massive projected three-volume work, the first volume of which, To Arms, clocked in at 1250-plus pages last year. Strachan strenuously avoids the traditional focus on the Western Front (and the British) and the conventional assumptions of generals' stupidity and soldiers' valor. The war as he sees it was a race among generals on all sides to create new weapons and tactics faster than their opponents, a race that the Triple Entente won. It was also a race among soldiers to fight with these new weapons and tactics instead of raw courage and numbers wherever possible. Yet Russia and the Dual Monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were totally unfit for a large modern war (one reason the czar and his empire fell in 1917) and were a source of fatal weakness to Germany's alliance even before Italy changed sides. The political background (including the rising consciousness of colonial nationalities conscripted for the war), social consequences and diplomatic finagling all face an equal amount of revision, leaving the book organized more thematically than chronologically. Readers already familiar with the sequence of events in strict order will benefit most. But all readers will eventually be gripped, and even the most seasoned ones will praise the insights and the original choice of illustrations. This is likely to be the most indispensable one-volume work on the subject since John Keegan's First World War, and will draw serious readers to the larger work. Five city author tour. (On sale Apr. 26) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT

These two books are touted on their dust jackets as outstanding one-volume histories of WW I and both are written by British historians. Strachan's book entitled The First World War is clearly the more accessible of the two, written in a breezier style, with helpful photographs dotting every few pages (and a great set of maps in the beginning); it is also briefer (the type font is not especially small, either). Stevenson's book entitled Cataclysm: the First World War as Political Tragedy is knottier and more academic in style and nearly 500 pages long (with a smaller, less inviting typeface). Stevenson's chapter titles are simply descriptive; Strachan's are more metaphorically allusive (a mark against it, actually—just what, you wonder, is in that chapter.) Both have good end notes, though Stevenson's book, not surprisingly, has a more carefully detailed index. A school looking for one new book on the subject would most likely want the shorter, punchier one. Neither makes as bold a reappraisal of events as fellow Brit Niall Ferguson did a few years back with Pity of War, but they each have a key selling point: Strachan leads directly from the war then to the world now (especially in the Middle East), while Stevenson carefully probes motives and context for key actions throughout the conflict in a way that sheds new light on each element. For libraries building a rich collection on the topic for student research, both books would be useful additions. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2003, Penguin, 364p. illus. maps. notes. index., Ages 15 to adult.
—Daniel Levinson

Library Journal

With this superbly written survey, Strachan (Chichele Professor of the History of War, All Souls Coll., Oxford Univ.), a noted authority on this frequently misunderstood but critically important conflict, will provide the scholar and the interested reader alike with a suitable starting point for study. Ninety years since it began, Strachan details the important factors behind World War I, covers the major ground and naval campaigns and battles, and assesses the roles of leading officers and statesmen while simultaneously highlighting the home fronts and the non-European aspects of this cataclysmic event. The coverage is what one would expect from a survey, but the consistently superior writing separates this volume from its competitors. The photographs, many of which will be new to even the most devoted specialist, deserve special mention. General surveys of wars and campaigns are common in all types of libraries, but finely crafted works such as this merit our attention. While Strachan doesn't knock the recent superb efforts of John Keegan and Niall Ferguson off the shelves, he adds another excellent narrative history to the growing recent literature on the Great War. Strongly recommended for academic and public libraries.-John R. Vallely, Siena Coll. Lib., Loudonville, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Strachan provides a comprehensive and gripping account of one of the most bloody and important wars in human history, bringing to readers a reality beyond its grim reputation. His greatest contribution is to restore the worldwide dimension to this conflict, for it was a war that was fought in Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific, and Eastern Europe, as well as in Western Europe. Furthermore, he shows the widespread effects of the war wherever it was fought, and he delineates the meaning the conflict had for its combatants. Some of his judgments might be debatable, but his accomplishment with this book is not. Well written and well illustrated with photographs, the volume lifts readers' eyes from the mud of Flanders.-Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A well-conceived and lucidly written survey of the 20th century's first great bloodletting, with close attention to little-known episodes in and preceding the conflict. The First World War was preeminently a conflict between England and Germany over control of the sea, and consequently of European trade-a clash of Weltpolitik and Empire, as it were. Germany, writes Strachan (History/Oxford Univ.; World War I, 1999), challenged the "status quo in three ways: colonial, naval, and economic"; but that challenge does not translate to responsibility for the outbreak of the war, which in any event involved many other nations, many rivalries and grudges, and many little martial sparks that added up to one big conflagration. (For a time, Strachan observes, Austro-Hungarians hoped that the fire could be contained in a decisive Third Balkan War, meant to settle Serbia's hash once and for all.) Strachan notes that although the war was global, with theaters in Asia and Africa, our conception and images of it center on Europe-and even then only on the bloody trenches that cut across the continent. He also remarks that the standard histories forget the "war's other participants," apart from the soldiers: namely, "diplomats and sailors, politicians and laborers, women and children." Even in places where the war hit hardest-oddly, England suffered more losses in the First than the Second World War-it's in danger of being lost to memory, and Strachan's overview brings into sharp focus the proximate causes and critical moments of the conflict, from the well-known (Jutland, the Somme) to the comparatively little studied (the abortive English invasion of German-held Cameroon, the savage campaigns in theAlps). The war ended with an astonishing toll: more than 800,000 German soldiers in the spring of 1918 alone, followed by the deaths of many more due not to Allied bullets but to the arrival of the Spanish flu that summer. Heavily illustrated with maps and period photographs: the best single-volume treatment of the conflict in recent years. Agent: Michael Carlisle/Carlisle & Co.